Bitcoin euphoria and how it can damage volunteer distributed computing

Message boards : Number crunching : Bitcoin euphoria and how it can damage volunteer distributed computing
Message board moderation

To post messages, you must log in.

Previous · 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · Next

AuthorMessage
Profile Mike Special Project $75 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 17 Feb 01
Posts: 34253
Credit: 79,922,639
RAC: 80
Germany
Message 1917314 - Posted: 6 Feb 2018, 7:49:04 UTC

Don`t forget Bitcoin is used in the Dark net for illegal weapon sales too for example.
Makes it more risky.


With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.
ID: 1917314 · Report as offensive
Profile Gary Charpentier Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 25 Dec 00
Posts: 30608
Credit: 53,134,872
RAC: 32
United States
Message 1917480 - Posted: 7 Feb 2018, 17:21:02 UTC

I can see in the not too distant future many countries having a "great firewall" as China does and that firewall blocking block chain (TOR and VPN too) transactions. Depending on the repressiveness of the Government an attempt to block chain may bring a visit from state security. I can also see a multi national effort to close every exchange and destroy every coin therein.

What may then be allowed is a backdoor trace coin where governments can and will track every coin.
ID: 1917480 · Report as offensive
Profile Keith Myers Special Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 29 Apr 01
Posts: 13161
Credit: 1,160,866,277
RAC: 1,873
United States
Message 1917483 - Posted: 7 Feb 2018, 17:26:00 UTC - in response to Message 1917480.  

That is never going to happen. One of the biggest current drivers of blockchain technology other than the miners are the financial markets. There is more money in R&D and development being spent there than there is in crypto mining.
Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)
ID: 1917483 · Report as offensive
Profile Mike Special Project $75 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 17 Feb 01
Posts: 34253
Credit: 79,922,639
RAC: 80
Germany
Message 1917484 - Posted: 7 Feb 2018, 17:52:55 UTC

I don`t want to go to much into politcs but i agree with Keith here.
I have very good inside view in this case and i`m fully aware whats possible.
Maybe they can block the majority but not the geeks.


With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.
ID: 1917484 · Report as offensive
Profile Zalster Special Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 27 May 99
Posts: 5517
Credit: 528,817,460
RAC: 242
United States
Message 1917498 - Posted: 7 Feb 2018, 19:42:21 UTC

I think seti lost the ability to say they aren’t connected when they started to accept bitcoin donations and people to crunch coin teams. If neither of those had happen, then I think there could have been an argument to say they are different. My 2 cents
ID: 1917498 · Report as offensive
Chris Adamek
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 15 May 99
Posts: 251
Credit: 434,772,072
RAC: 236
United States
Message 1918087 - Posted: 10 Feb 2018, 17:34:00 UTC - in response to Message 1917120.  

Is adding some solar panels an option for you? I haven’t heard much about solar availability over there...
ID: 1918087 · Report as offensive
Chris Adamek
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 15 May 99
Posts: 251
Credit: 434,772,072
RAC: 236
United States
Message 1918090 - Posted: 10 Feb 2018, 17:37:53 UTC - in response to Message 1917498.  

I think seti lost the ability to say they aren’t connected when they started to accept bitcoin donations and people to crunch coin teams. If neither of those had happen, then I think there could have been an argument to say they are different. My 2 cents


Totally agee, all the folks at NASA Johnson Space Center, including myself had to remove it from our machines because the two could be connected in the way describe and they didn’t want to run the risk of people mining for any reason in their machines. 30k+ RAC lost from my machine alone sigh. Of course that just means I have to compensate with an additional GPU at home.=). But there is a not insignificant amount of work being lost now due to this...

Chris
ID: 1918090 · Report as offensive
Profile Dimly Lit Lightbulb 😀
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 30 Aug 08
Posts: 15399
Credit: 7,423,413
RAC: 1
United Kingdom
Message 1918788 - Posted: 14 Feb 2018, 15:21:24 UTC

Crypto-currency craze 'hinders search for alien life'

Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

ID: 1918788 · Report as offensive
Profile Zalster Special Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 27 May 99
Posts: 5517
Credit: 528,817,460
RAC: 242
United States
Message 1918789 - Posted: 14 Feb 2018, 15:25:43 UTC - in response to Message 1918788.  

Crypto-currency craze 'hinders search for alien life'


Dimly hope you won't mind if I share this.
ID: 1918789 · Report as offensive
kittyman Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jul 00
Posts: 51468
Credit: 1,018,363,574
RAC: 1,004
United States
Message 1918790 - Posted: 14 Feb 2018, 15:26:48 UTC - in response to Message 1918788.  

Crypto-currency craze 'hinders search for alien life'

Die, bitcoin, die!!!
LOL.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

ID: 1918790 · Report as offensive
Profile Jord
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jun 99
Posts: 15184
Credit: 4,362,181
RAC: 3
Netherlands
Message 1918792 - Posted: 14 Feb 2018, 16:16:19 UTC

Of course, that's not totally true. It's true if you try to buy the GPUs yourself from retail. But normally when building such a supercomputer, you outsource that and the company doing the actual building will get into contact with either NVIDIA or AMD directly, or with one of the many subsidiaries who make GPUs with an Nvidia or AMD chip on it. And then they order a whole bunch of them immediately, which makes the price they pay for them go down as well.

Just like Astron did with Asus for the 200 GTX1080 Ti's. Each card they break goes back to the builders. The builders have an appointment with Asus that any broken 1080 Ti will be replaced or repaired, but Astron cannot wait for that so they get the replacement immediately.
ID: 1918792 · Report as offensive
Profile tullio
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 9 Apr 04
Posts: 8797
Credit: 2,930,782
RAC: 1
Italy
Message 1918794 - Posted: 14 Feb 2018, 16:57:25 UTC
Last modified: 14 Feb 2018, 16:58:52 UTC

I've read that the nVidia CEO complains because miners use more ASICS than nVidia boards. Where nVidia gets its money is from supercomputers, like the Swiss Piz Daint in Lugano, with its thousands of Tesla boards. It is third in the Top500 List after two Chinese computers and ahead of all American computers.
Tullio
ID: 1918794 · Report as offensive
Profile Keith Myers Special Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 29 Apr 01
Posts: 13161
Credit: 1,160,866,277
RAC: 1,873
United States
Message 1918817 - Posted: 14 Feb 2018, 19:03:58 UTC - in response to Message 1918788.  

So how many people have filled out the contact information at the end of the article saying you are impacted by the unavailability of reasonably priced gpus to continue your scientific distributed computing projects?
Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)
ID: 1918817 · Report as offensive
Profile Dimly Lit Lightbulb 😀
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 30 Aug 08
Posts: 15399
Credit: 7,423,413
RAC: 1
United Kingdom
Message 1918819 - Posted: 14 Feb 2018, 19:15:52 UTC - in response to Message 1918789.  

Crypto-currency craze 'hinders search for alien life'


Dimly hope you won't mind if I share this.

By all means :)

Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

ID: 1918819 · Report as offensive
Profile Zalster Special Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 27 May 99
Posts: 5517
Credit: 528,817,460
RAC: 242
United States
Message 1918911 - Posted: 15 Feb 2018, 4:04:40 UTC

So I just had a thought (yes I do get one every other blue moon)

Seti@home is a non-profit correct?

Does having it's members mining for blockchain (which later gets convert to digital coinage) violate the non-profit status???

Thoughts in the middle of the night....
ID: 1918911 · Report as offensive
Grant (SSSF)
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 19 Aug 99
Posts: 13720
Credit: 208,696,464
RAC: 304
Australia
Message 1918919 - Posted: 15 Feb 2018, 4:56:46 UTC - in response to Message 1918911.  

So I just had a thought (yes I do get one every other blue moon)

Seti@home is a non-profit correct?

Does having it's members mining for blockchain (which later gets convert to digital coinage) violate the non-profit status???

If they produced an application that mined Crypto currencies for themselves it would.
If users mine currencies using readily available applications and donate the proceeds to Seti, then it doesn't.

Since the project hasn't produced a mining application, and they've only made it possible make donations to them using a Crypto currency, and they don't promote the mining of that currency in order to donate to them, they don't violate their non-profit status,
Grant
Darwin NT
ID: 1918919 · Report as offensive
Profile Stargate (SA)
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 4 Mar 10
Posts: 1854
Credit: 2,258,721
RAC: 0
Australia
Message 1918925 - Posted: 15 Feb 2018, 5:18:08 UTC

To my understanding of Bitcoin in Australia can we or not cash out like you would in shares?
Heard of a QLD family who sold everything in August last year and put it on Bitcoin, now living in caravan (trailer)
Sad part is they have children..
Personally I think unless big changes happen I can see all crypto currencies being banned in 5 years or so
ID: 1918925 · Report as offensive
Profile Keith Myers Special Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 29 Apr 01
Posts: 13161
Credit: 1,160,866,277
RAC: 1,873
United States
Message 1918931 - Posted: 15 Feb 2018, 5:49:36 UTC - in response to Message 1918925.  

I doubt that will happen. There are too many interested parties in wanting the concept of digital cash to work. I saw announcement today that LiteCoin inked a deal with VISA to produce a LiteCoin VISA debit card and a payment system called Litepay. You load your LiteCoins that you mined from your wallet into the VISA debit card and use that debit card anywhere that VISA is accepted.

That is a game changing development. The concept of eliminating the middleman in financial exchanges is too enticing to go away forever. It may not look like the system of today but there surely will be some form of digital currency in the future. Just look at how many times that concept has made it into a science fiction story.
Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)
ID: 1918931 · Report as offensive
Profile Stargate (SA)
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 4 Mar 10
Posts: 1854
Credit: 2,258,721
RAC: 0
Australia
Message 1918935 - Posted: 15 Feb 2018, 6:05:26 UTC

Problem is it's still pixel currency, I compare it to a game to get stronger you buy certain things "makes you stronger or better,
End of day if the game was to end/fold you lose as it's virtual..And there is no way to get your real cash back..If I'm wrong please say so!
What I've seen so far is some countries can cash out and make a killing, but others can't withdraw which falls in the majority..
That family I spoke about in QLD lost everything..Worst part of it even if they made millions there is no cash out here as it's deemed virtual wealth..
ID: 1918935 · Report as offensive
Profile Keith Myers Special Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 29 Apr 01
Posts: 13161
Credit: 1,160,866,277
RAC: 1,873
United States
Message 1918955 - Posted: 15 Feb 2018, 8:13:39 UTC - in response to Message 1918935.  
Last modified: 15 Feb 2018, 8:14:07 UTC

That's what crypto currency exchanges are for. Think of them as money changers. Just like you do when you cross the border into another country and convert your dollars to euros or whatever. The exchanges take a cut of the transaction to stay in business. The exchange rate is whatever the coin value is at the time of transaction. The party that is taking a chance is the exchange because the values of the coins are so volatile. They can seesaw thousands of a percent in just an hour. They can get caught on the short end of the transaction if they hold the transferred coins too long on their account before they convert it to dollars or another coin.

I am not familiar with your country or its laws. So I don't have an opinion or insight why the family you mentioned lost everything.
Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)
ID: 1918955 · Report as offensive
Previous · 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · Next

Message boards : Number crunching : Bitcoin euphoria and how it can damage volunteer distributed computing


 
©2024 University of California
 
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.